How To Get Click-Throughs from Pinterest

What makes a pin more likely to receive click-throughs? Keep reading to learn how to optimize your pins for clicks.

You created an amazing image, with an equally amazing and keyword-rich description. The pin’s been shared hundreds – if not thousands – of times, but there’s still no sign of an increase in traffic to your site. What’s up with that? Descriptions can (and often are) changed when repinned, which is why it’s so important to optimize your pins for clicks. Keep reading to learn how to optimize your images to receive more click-throughs from Pinterest.

Call To Action

In a place where a typical banner ad is viewed as a four-letter word, many brands have shied away from creating calls to action. And it’s really a shame that the legendary CTA has become a lost art form in the world of Pinterest marketing. When done well, a CTA can be a powerful thing on Pinterest. Take this pin from the Oklahoma City Museum of Art:

The pin features an amazing work of art from the museum, has the name and website, and asks the pinner to become a member. A resident of Oklahoma City would be tempted to click-through to find out what it takes to be a member and learn more about the Chihuly piece featured in the pin. The pin accomplished all that while not being too ad-like by using a very simple CTA.

How-To’s & Step-by-Step Pins

How-to and step-by-step pins have become a staple of Pinterest. They’re a great way to gain a lot of repins, share your brand name with a wide range of users and generally go viral. However, many step-by-step pins are not great for click-through’s. For example, why click-through to learn more about this lipstick tutorial when the pin tells you everything you need to know?

While something like this has a great chance of going viral, there’s no reason to click. However when done well, a how-to or step-by-step pin can show a pinner exactly what they’re interested in learning without giving everything away. So, maybe I’m interested in being a milkmaid for halloween and need to find out how to do my hair. This pin would give me a teaser of what I’ll learn without telling me exactly how to create it:

After clicking through, Jenn of Hello Rigby shows me step-by-step how to create the perfect milkmaid braid. I get beautiful hair, and Jenn get the site visits. Everyone wins!

DO NOT Use Stand Alone Quotes

Now, if you’re looking to go viral, a well designed stand alone quote is a great way to spread across Pinterest. However, it is not a great way to receive clicks to your site. In the past, Tailwind has created posts centered around great quotes to try and drive repins and clicks. While the repins went through the roof (this post now has more than 100,000 repins), we only received a fraction of that in traffic. Again, like with how-to posts, quotes are great for virality – not for click-throughs’s.

DO Use Intriguing Quotes

While stand alone quotes won’t draw people to your site, taking a portion of an article or a tip from a post can be great for gaining clicks. Using a tidbit that shows the power of what you’re sharing will let people know they’ll get real insight if they click on your pin. Constant Contact is great at pulling tips that make you want to click and learn more:

Obviously Constant Contact knows email marketing and understands what works, so with the holiday season quickly approaching, they have a plethora of tips to make emails stand out. This great tip makes me want to learn more great tips, and clicking on the pin takes me to their blog on design rules that should be followed for holiday campaigns. Because they proved their knowledge in the pin, they won my click-through.

Offer Something for Free

Every loves free stuff. And giving away something for free can cost your brand next to nothing. Premium content is a great way to collect information and get click-throughs on pins. Offer a free eBook, white paper, case study, etc. and users are bound to click. For example, how hard is it not to click on this image?

HubSpot’s free eBook on optimizing your Pinterest account (with all new Pinterest analytics) is too tempting for any Pinterest marketer to ignore. When you click-through on the pin, HubSpot collects all kinds of information from the user before the download is unlocked. So not only is the pin driving clicks, it’s also giving HubSpot great leads for their business.

How do you drive clicks on Pinterest? Let us know in the comments!